The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed yesterday it had received a High Court summons from the Sean Quinn Group challenging its authority to consider a licensing proposal for a cement plant Co Meath planned by a competitor of the Co Fermanagh entrepreneur.
The Minister for the Environment, the Attorney General, An Bord Pleanala and Lagan Cement, the cement plant applicants, have been named as codefendants.
The application to build a cement manufacturing plant in Killaskillen, Co Meath, close to Kinnegad, received planning permission from Meath County Council on April 14th.
On September 22nd, the Meath County Council decision was appealed to An Bord Pleanala by two local residents and the Ballinabracky Residents Action Group. Lagan Cement also appealed against some of the 31 conditions attached to the permission.
Meanwhile, the Sean Quinn Group has issued High Court summonses on the basis that the agency cannot issue an integrated pollution-control licence because the EU directive on environmental impact statements, on which licensing decisions are partly based, has been wrongly transposed into national legislation.
According to the EU directive, an environmental impact statement must consider the project's effect and the interaction of humans, fauna and flora with soil, water, air, climate and the landscape. However the law prohibits the agency considering the interaction of those factors, according to the solicitors acting for the Quinn Group.
A resident who appealed the planning permission decision earlier this year - Ms Marie Goonery of Killaskillen, Kinnegad - took a similar case against the agency as the Sean Quinn Group. After the High Court ruled in the agency's favour, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court but has not yet come up for hearing.
A favourable decision for the Sean Quinn Group could throw previous agency licensing decisions into jeopardy including the one made for the Quinn Quarries cement plant in Ballyconnell, Co Cavan, last year.
A spokesperson for the Sean Quinn Group was unavailable for comment yesterday.
